They are now required to submit a plan defining the borders of the excavation area, which cannot be subsequently extended They are allowed only one excavation per season. They must now submit archaeological reports in Arabic as well as their own language. In the prime areas of Giza and Saqqara, they have to wind up their work within four years."Our policy is not to decrease the number of foreign archaeological missions in Egypt, nor to make things more difficult for them," Hawass told Al-Ahram, "but to control the excavations and encourage documentation, publication, restoration and conservation."But foreign archaeologists are anxious. "We thought he was one of us until he got this job," said one, "but he seems to have gone power-mad; either that or he is exacting revenge for what he sees as slights in the past." (Hawass has been criticised by Dieter Wildung and others for starring in TV documentaries that use Hollywood clips and computer graphics).The Egyptian himself is rather more philosophical. "If this [control of foreign archaeologists] is not done now, 100 years hence most of our marvellous monuments will be beyond repair," he has said But he is emotional, too. When statues discovered in his excavations were sent, temporarily, to an exhibition at the Louvre, he said: "I was very sad that day because they were taking my children away from me." And he has offered a mystical justification, too "We [modern Egyptians] are the descendants of the pharaohs. If you look at the faces of the people of Upper Egypt, the relationship between modern and ancient Egypt is very clear."His government - his special backer is the President's wife, Suzanne Mubarak - sees in his cultural nationalism a tool to appease the discontent of Islamic fundamentalists who argue that Egypt is too pro-Western.
One prominent Egyptian politician denounced Berlin's Nefertiti experiment as "un-Islamic", despite the fact that the queen co-ruled with the pharaoh Akhenaton, who changed Egyptian society to worship one god, the sun god, some 2,000 years before the Prophet Mohammed was born."Zahi Hawass is doing his job quite aggressively," said one British archaeologist, with considerable understatement. "The fear is," said another Egyptologist, "that Zahi has really got it in for foreigners and that in five years there will be no foreign-run digs in Egypt. He has said that he thinks that only about 30 per cent of Egyptian monuments have been unearthed, and he wants to make sure that the other 70 per cent are found by Egyptians. Meantime, he wants to get back as much as he can from foreign museums."As he left to return to Egypt, Dr Hawass offered a compromise - "a possible three-month loan of the stone".
Officials at the British Museum have publicly described the idea as "constructive". Privately, they fear they might never get it back.Perhaps the loan should be reciprocal. The iconic golden death mask of King Tut could come west as the Rosetta Stone goes east. The idea of a hostage is, after all, one which should be familiar to anyone who knows the intrigues of that ancient land.. A potholer leading a television documentary crew was trapped in a cave for 24 hours after she fell seven feet and injured her back and pelvis.
